Why have I embarked on 365?

Have you ever stopped long enough to look back over your decisions to wonder why the hell you made them in the first place?

It’s this strange crossroads type of place where you look back over your time, life choices and, in my case, work and feel happy about the decisions you’ve made, but know you can do better. Well, that’s kind of where I was at just over 2 months ago, when I made the decision to undertake a 365 Project.

If you frequent my website a lot you’ll have noticed I’ve not been around for a little while – I’ve not been gone, just absent, beavering away debating my next move. As artists we’re constantly looking for creativity to inspire us, usually in everyday life. But my life has been so full of the everyday mundane and routine recently that I’ve not felt full of inspiration.

“I was filled with content that I thought my audience wanted to see, rather than what I really wanted to create…”

Instead my mind has been full of thoughts like “the mortgage will go out in two weeks…” or “I need to be at this place at this time, and it’s imperative I’m not late” and more usually “I need to complete X amount of work, walk the dog, plan meals for the week, go to the gym, be a healthy adult, and make sure I am a fully functioning human being” without imploding… probably all sounds too familiar if you’re a freelancer*, like me.

But in January I made the conscious decision to become a solo blogger; define that as you will, I don’t really think I really knew what journey I was undergoing when I made that choice. I was filled with content that I thought my audience wanted to see, rather than what I really wanted to create. And to be honest if you’d of point blank asked me what I actually wanted to be putting out there into the ether I probably would of said, “ermmm can you come back to me on that one later? Cheers…”

“I felt like I was losing my identity, and becoming this new dis-functional version of myself…”

I was in this extremely weird Alice in Wonderland type place. I was invited to plenty of incredible events and experiencing awesome things in Manchester, however not really creating the content I wanted to see, but instead what would gain me a bigger following. I was too tuned into my numbers, and not my work. As as a photographer, that really wasn’t where my head was supposed to be at. It took a massive smack in the face, to make me wake up and smell the social dissatisfaction to realise, hey, I’m not actually all that happy with my content I’m over here creating. Who am I again?

I felt like I was losing my identity, and becoming this new dis-functional version of myself. Not enough of one thing, and not even too much of the other, just in this strange grey muggy area in the middle. I wasn’t sure what road I was on, or who I was actually becoming, all I knew was that I remember who I wanted to be. That same person I wanted to become when I was 13 years old, a photographer.

Okay okay, enough of the rambling, you want to know what this will mean for you, the reader, right?

Well all it really means is the content you’re going to see moving forward is going to be a lot more curated to what I want, and not what I think you guys want – as if it isn’t coming from a truer version of me, you guys are going to see straight through that, right?

Hence forth the ‘365 project’!

If you follow me on Instagram you’ll of noticed that my 365 photo-project is already underway, the morning I post this with you, I’m already on day 68 and I’m loving it! All the content will of been shot by yours truly, and it will not only serve as a platform where I showcase my best work, personal and professional for the next 365 days, but also a place to be my true creative self, and just be who I want to be. How does that sound ey? #deep #deeperthanEyalonLoveIsland

The blog will follow in the footsteps of the 365 project; it’ll be home to a little bit more than just photographs but ultimately it’s here to achieve the same goals – to showcase my best photographic work, and act as an extension of my portfolios (which you can view here, if you like).

And that’s it! I mean, don’t get me wrong I did expect some kind of ‘Welcome Back’ banner, a cake, a sing-song, but whatever… I’ll just take the fact you’re here reading this as my gift. This is my triumphant return to blogging! Hope to see a lot more of you, my readers, as we move ahead into this new time for my content. And you can look forward to seeing many more photographs like these featured in today’s post from my 365 project, as I move forward with the blog.

Peace, love & stuff… x

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* – If you haven’t already checked out my blog post about ‘What Being Freelance Means to Me” then please do, just click here.